congratulations, eskender. >> good afternoon and welcome to today's meeting of the commonwealth club of california, the place where you are in the know. i am currently a director of the california clean energy fund, also a long serving member of the commonwealth club. please turn off all your noise- making devices. we will get under way in just a moment, but first, i want to tell you a bit about a couple of upcoming programs. next monday, november 21, tom brokaw, nbc news correspondent and author, will discuss the current mood of america. this will be a program starting at 1:00 p.m. at the santa clara convention center. on tuesday, november 29, paula kerger, who is president of pbs, and the president of kqed will discuss the challenges facing public broadcasting and how the challenges impact our program choices. this will be a 6:00 p.m. program here in san francisco at the commonwealth club. it is my pleasure to extend a special welcome to any new members of the commonwealth club who are here today. we know you are going to enjoy your membership and look forward to seeing you often.

i look forward to an intriguing menu here starting with eskender. thank you for your leadership here. [applause] >> he cannot talk get. he is at the very end. [laughter] i just want to thank -- then davis from the san francisco housing corporation. she helped to get this bill. i also wanted to introduce supervisor cohen to state a few words. we are all one family and we were together but i also wanted to thank every development staff, especially andrea baker for helping to manage this project. [applause] supervisor cohen? >> thank you, mr. mayor, for once again and leaving me with nothing left to say. it is good to see our city partners and a special thank you to the agency formally known as the redevelopment agency. thank you for your guidance in getting us here, to this ribbon- cutting ceremony. it is an exciting time. we are starting to go through a rebirth, as we focus on how we are reprogramming mandel plaza, continuing infrastructure programs as well as structural improvements to the bayview opera house. i am putting everyone in their area on